…you will be saved, you and your household…
30 Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs,what must I do to be saved?” 31 And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” 32 And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. 33 And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds; and he was baptized at once, he and all his family.
This passage is brought up quite frequently when discussing various aspects of salvation and family. It begins easy enough, with the question by the Jailer what must I do to be saved? The answer is straightforward and consistent with the rest of the gospel message, Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved. Before we move on, let’s pause and allow that statement to reinforce the truth that salvation is tied to believing, or more commonly called faith. Also note that in the Jailer’s question we see the problem with all mankind, that in our pride we think salvation comes because of something that we do.
But then it becomes confusing because the immediate next statement is not only that the jailer will be saved, but you and your household. Because of this, some have interpreted the message to mean that if the Jailer believes, salvation will come not only to him but to all of his family.
First, I will say that it is self-evident when a patriarch of a family gets saved the likelihood of his wife and children also getting saved appears to go up dramatically. We can see this clearly even from the most casual observation of families where the Holy Spirit has truly transformed the life of the man. However, it certainly is no guarantee. The message given to the Jailer is more emphatic, his household…will be saved.
Was that the intent of Peter and his companions?
Perhaps there is another way to look at it, one that is more consistent with other scriptures that make it clear salvation is tied to individual belief. Although it is possible to interpret this passage to mean that the entire household of the Jailer will be saved if he would place his faith in Christ, it is just as reasonable to interpret the passage like this:
What must I do to be saved?
Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved?
How can those in my household be saved?
If they believe in the Lord Jesus, they will be saved as well
Rather than understanding Peter to be saying “If you believe in Jesus you will be saved and salvation will also come to your household through your belief”, we need to see it as “If you as an individual believe in Jesus you will be saved, and every individual in your household will be saved in the same way, through their own individual belief.”
The historical basis for this is found in a belief that was prevalent throughout the various religions in ancient Rome. The belief was that only certain people were blessed by, or able to be blessed by the gods. Slaves for example, who most likely would have been part of the Jailer’s household, would have been considered by many as being rejected by the gods. Children were though of as not being capable of obtaining the gods favor. Remember, the Jailer was certain that salvation was tied to something that he must do, and children could not do the same things as adults. Even women were often not considered worthy of the gods favor.
So it is against this notion that the message goes out “every person in your household can be saved in the same way, Believe in the Lord Jesus.
This understanding is consistent with what happens next in the passage, that they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. If salvation would come to his household though the jailer’s faith in Jesus, then why preach the gospel to all who were there?
As with all scripture, we must be careful not to read into this text anything that is not there. We do not know who would have been counted in the jailer’s household. Some people use this verse when discussing infant baptism, but there’s no indication any infants, or children of any age were in his house. I believe it is safe to assume this jailer would have owned slaves and those would have been considered members of the household. However, even that is not in the text, and any speculation would be exactly that, speculation.
Therefore, although I see some validity in understating the statement Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household as indicating through the faith of the jailer salvation will come to all members of his home, taking the passage as a whole, together with the rest of the New Testament, as well as an understanding of the prejudices of the first century Roman culture, I believe the message they were communicating was that individual salvation comes through individual faith and that any member of a household, including women, children and even slaves, can be saved if they believe in the Lord Jesus.
– Kyle Restoule